Incredibly, the New York bar presented this to the newspapers as their having such a high standard, since New Jersey went ahead and admitted the ex-murderer.Most of the people writing on the blog said he made one little mistake and should be admitted.

The New York bar will admit anyone. Despite their marble statutes and supposed grand traditions, they are all about collecting (high) fees. It's the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas that is not in Texas (even Texas has higher standards).

I once worked on a project where months into it one of the 'lawyers' was found not to have been admitted anywhere. Last bar exam, the New York bar boasted a 91% pass rate. Basically, anyone at all can be a lawyer in New York. The State Bar of California boasts on its website the constantly increasing number of lawyers. Last year I checked it was 200,000."

Half the Nigerians on these projects are probably unlicensed ghost family members. I once worked on a project with a sex offender, and now we have to worry about murderers. Ladies, don't forget about to bring your mace to work.

The writer is correct, the bar only cares about collecting licensing, bar exam, and CLE fees. The more the merrier.

If the bar officials and Dept. of Homeland Security ICE officers did a surprise inspection of any of these mills, I bet half the place would be carted away in the paddywagon. The agencies don't care because the more "licenses" (fake or not) they can find, the cheaper they can pay out and the bigger cut they get to take home.

Almost every major law firm in the U.S. is Democrat and one of the biggest contributors to Obama (Paul Weiss is the most partisan and might as well be an arm of the Democratic Party with all the ex-Dem politicians and flunkies there). The Republicans don't have a clue about the biglaw scam and focus their attention on tort lawyers, the biggest single givers to the Democrats.

Look at the board of The New York Law Journal. 100% big law firm partners. It's a conspiracy.

"Of course, if he moves to India he can practice New York Law with impunity."

Right. He would never ever get a work permit to enter India. All these countries are smart and do background checks on people who want to work there. Only the New York bar lets in unqualified trash like the Nigerians, who are bloodsuckers and leeches on society.

P.S. Nigeria is in absolute chaos right now due to so-called rebels. It's completely tribal there so people are cutting each other's heads off with machetes.

You think the Nigerians are so nice. They are only out for themselves and their clique. Name one person these bloodsuckers ever helped. Name one thing they ever did for America except play the race card and create criminal enterprises. They even wreck doc review projects with their scamming and overbilling.

The ghost temps thing of the Nigerians is a well-known practise of these lousy rats.

"The writer is correct, the bar only cares about collecting licensing, bar exam, and CLE fees."

As someone else correctly noted, the Law Society in England used to do the same thing until this year its members led a revolt. They froze all "transfer testing" for foreigners until further notice. Half or more of these testers were from Nigeria and other African so-called lawyers.

Time to start attacking the New York bar publicly and relentlessly until they face a similar revolt. Except here people will figure out some way to say it isn't fair or racist. Gloria Allred will be on Larry King every night pleading their case while driving back to her Beverly Hills Mansion in her Bentley. And letting Larry taste the honey pot and maybe be his 9th wife.

The real problem is the so-called Indian lawyers. They are performing American Legal work, unfettered by American ethics rules, discovery laws, attorney licensing requirements, American CLEs, US law school debt or ANY of the requirements that a hard working, licensed American JD must maintain.

The Nigerian bit is just a ruse by the LPOs to hide their own shameful conduct.

Yes, the New York Bar must begin to tighten its requirements, especially to close the spigot of unrestrained, poorly trained foreign Attorneys from flooding the market and taking jobs from Americans.

Also, US Law schools must reduce the number of grads and state Bars should institute hard caps on the number of new admissions each year.

The vast majority of US jurisdictions do NOT allow foreign LLMs to sit for the bar. On my current project in NYC there are no Nigerians.

While the NY Bar should end its liberal LLM admissions, the major problem is threat to the already collapsing legal profession present ed by LPOs and other offshoring in India.

The New York State Board of Law Examiners announced today that grading has been completedfor the February 2009 bar examination. Graduates of ABA-approved law schools taking theexamination for the first time passed at the rate of 73.3%, while foreign-educated first-timecandidates had a passing rate of 37.1%.

The most recent bar exam period was this past July, for which passing rate has not been released yet.

If we go backwards one year to July 2008,

http://www.nybarexam.org/Press/1108%20press%20release.pdf

The overall passage rate was 74.7%.ABA graduates - First Time Takers was 90.5% (which I guess is where the original poster got 91 from)

Also yes the Nigerians are a big big threat.Both by their big numbers (not a "few") and their lack of qualification and ethics which sink projects and steal American jobs. Stop trying to sweep this under the rug you Nigerian trolls!

Poorly trained? I'm sorry, but US law schools do not "train" anybody. It's just a 3 year hazing ritual. The only reason anybody does it is because people think after the hazing they'll get a good job.

Rest assured, any law graduate is incompetent. That is why big law associates don't really do anything the first few years, they have to learn on the job. That is also why the pay is lower for everyone else, big law pays for "potential" not actual performance or legal ability. That is why this system was also unsustainable, the cost of getting a legal education and becoming an attorney in good standing is simply too prohibitive for the actual training given. The idea was the bar would at least prevent others from practicing law, so a barred attorney was a commodity.

Obviously that is not the case here. Too many lawyers have been certified. Also, there are plenty of people in lower income areas, and maybe other areas actually, that practice without a license. A licensed attorney will not be able to compete because of the advantages an unlicensed attorney has in terms of finances. As long as you don't actually represent people in court, and hell, maybe even if you do, you can get away without being licensed for a long time.

I sure is glad I didn't go to law school. Yaw'll uppity lawyers come down south, have a brewskie and chill out folks. When it gits cold up there you kids get cabin fever. Reeeelax...Most good things in life don't cost a cent - heck I don't even have to pay for a woman, my daughter Emily does it fer me...all in the family, boys...

Hey 4:54. Did your mother tell you what a great time she had last night with my Babu Kamasutra dick? I twisted and bent her over in all kinds of ancient pretzels. She must not have told you because she didn't want to make you feel bad - since she never felt your thimble dong the many times you poked her. Sorry, Babu.

Why do I keep coming back here when all I read is BULLSHIT from you airheads? The economy is in the crapper: when your unemployment benefits run out, you're going to have to go mooch off of your relatives to stay alive. And your bitching about everything except what you should be bitching about.

Indians? Nigerians?? The fucking NY Bar? Haven't you figured all this out yet?

The 91% quote was published in multiple sources including the front page of the law journal. But you claim to "know better".

Typical New York lawyer. Would argue over a pinhead.

Also it's funny how this New York lawyer tries so hard to deny this. Can't admit that thing you did is so un-prestige and what you "achieved" can be done by anyone. So scream, no that is not true! No it is doubtful! No it can't be!

Wake up you stupid fuck! You paid $200k for law school and paid for a bar review course, that anyone with a checkbook could have done. ANYONE, ANYONE, ANYONE CAN BE A MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK BAR AND PASSING IS A PIECE OF CAKE.

There is another news article that last sitting, 400 people did not complete their essays. Such geniuses they are!

These are the same people who say doc review is rewarding and a real career, and more important than associate work.

If you meet some of the lawyers on a big doc review project, you immediately see why the "profession of law" is in such deep shit. (The other half are cool and pretty smart, and don't want to practice.) They usually went to average to poor law schools, had undistinguished records there, are minorities, are lazy as shit, are on the phone all day (loud too), are very status conscious, always watch what other people are saying and doing and parrot it (parrot nose), glom on to things, and try to act to the outside world that they are members of the firm where they are working day to day."I'm a doctorate of law. I hold a doctoral degree.""The AmLaw 100. Mom and dad, that's me. You can be proud of me. I got straight A in liberal arts school in Bennington and now am a counselor at laws."

I don't want to work with an ex-con who spent 25 years in jail and don't think it does the image of this profession, such as it is in tatters already, any good.But can or does the New York Bar look at the backgrounds of all these Nigerian LL.M's it is licensing right and left? How can it? Meanwhile being strict about Americans' qualifications and need to have a J.D. from an accredited law school.HOW CAN YOU FUCKING NEW YORK BAR RECONCILE TREATING YOUR OWN CITIZENS AND THIS FOREIGN RUBBISH SO DIFFERENTLY?

I worked on one project where there was a registered sex offender who was hitting on the firm lawyers with good bodies, on another where the person had been canned in his last job for sex harassment and said temping was a good way to get poontang, and on another where a lecherous gay cruised around the rooms trying to line up a big frankfurter for the night.But your agency will give you reams of lectures and disclosures about sex issue policies.

The two big whore states, California and New York, allow these unqualified rubbish to take the bar. Most don't work here but put it on their business card in their home country and say, you don't need to hire a U.S. law firm. I can do the work and give an opinion.Genius New York Bar!

California is the better of the two because it lets people who don't go to law school take the bar, albeir under tougher conditions.But this cuts out the power of law schools and makes them less influential and money grubbing than in other states.

The one guy who keeps clinging onto the 91% passage rate is just being ridiculous. Just because you can quote it from somewhere doesn't mean it's the whole truth. Otherwise, it would be "true" that average and median starting salaries for law grads is well into the six figures. Those salary stats have caveats, as did the 91% stat. The 91% was a subset of all test-takers.

The overall passage rate was roughly 75%. Look at the actual NY Bar's site. By no means is 75% "prestige."

Oh yes is you expose the Nigerian foreigners working in our country that's racist.Better stop talking about it... the Nigerians don't like it.

Once again Nigerians are a nationality not a race.Duh I flunked Con Law at Touro.

The New York, CA, and WVA bars should not allow any foreigners to be admitted. Period.It's reciprocity since every country in the world restricts the legal profession to their own nationals for national security reasons as the US does for all court positions including clerks.

"The one guy who keeps clinging onto the 91% passage rate is just being ridiculous."

Another person who can't face the truth and has to think his being a lawyer was a good move and so unique.

The New York law journal front page is not just any source, It's the newspaper of record for all judicial proceedings in New York, including the court calendar. They were quoted word for word.91% of all law school graduates passed last testing. Period.

The average pass rate was 75% due to retarded LLM's (thousands of whom take it hoping to take American jobs).

I'm from New York. I'm a winner. The whole world is my oyster. I am an attorney at law. The holder of a doctoral degree in juris science. Not everyone can do this. Only the chosen few.I am better than others. That's what matter.I work at Am Law 100 firm. As a counselor at the law.Did I tell you I was actually sworn in at the appellate division in front of a judge? He told me about the majesty of this profession and the long road of history that I was the descendant of.

Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don't stop it (to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right)

I work hard to stay out of the ghetto. I pay through the nose to live where I do. I break my back to take my kids to Disney every other year or so. Thanks New York bar for turning my workplace into the ghetto. Soon, with rates going down the way that they are, I will be living in the ghetto.

The New York Bar is a bigger whore than the California Bar. At least in California, you can sit for the exam even if you haven't attended one of the unaccredited ABA schools. In NY, they make you attend one of the ABA schools (13 out of 14 of which are massively, massively overpriced), unless you are from Nigeria or some other 3rd world toilet, in which you can just get some shitty LLM. New York and the ABA love to discriminate against and milk Americans.

Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Arias, there was an age undreamed of. Add onto this, Joan King, destined to wear the jeweled crown of BLS upon a trouble brow. It is I, her chronicler, who alone can tell the of her saga. Let me tell you of the days of high tuition!

Joan King's retirement with her big package paid for all of us BLS grads hasn't stopped her from trolling here. i always thought she was completely fake but maybe she believes some of her own bull.... no she just makes things up like job numbers.When I got to BLS I believed Joan's lies. I really thought I was at a august institution of learing in the most important legal center in the world, and that gold was in the hills.Some people who were older tried to warn me, but I said to myself they were losers with sour grapes. Where's my Davis Polk partnership?

The Nigerians realize they need hard working JD's to cover for their being on the phone and not knowing what the hell they are doing. Also when the client shows up and they have to stick the Nigerians in the closet.

Putting aside all the huffing and puffing by people who want to believe that being a lawyer is being part of an exclusive club like Brideshead Revisited.

The author's point is that there are way too many lawyers and that the proximate cause of this are the state bars and the law schools they accredit and encourage to graduate - New York and California being by far the worst offenders.

These are your bars! You should be attacking your reps who run them day and night and run them out of town!

For the bars it's not just about fees but about being bigger makes them more powerful and important, and can swing the membership. This is like Boss Tweed's political machine. No wonder the big law firms like Paul Weiss are so political.

Like Obama promoting civil rights and liberal causes is just a cover for their lust for power.

1) Don't cry for the Calif Bar with 200K+ lawyers. Calif accredits their own law schools and allows foreign LLMs. Feel sorry for Arizona; who will be flooded with Calif Admission on Motion applications in the next few years. Stupid move Arizona.

2) AS far as character and fitness, we all know it varies state to state with absurdities. You almost have to be canonized to pass in FLa. Yet you can get away with murder in NJ :-). Look at the complaints almost daily in jdunderground.com.

3) We really need to take the cue form the British. Stop the unlicensed practice of Law (paralegal, CPA, and Export). FOr heaven sakes we don't need 200 law schools graduating 300 new entrants a year!

Whether ex-con or foreigner or whatever, all that should matter is legal and ethical qualifications and protection of the public. Unless because of lack of education or the nature of the crime they can't be trusted to serve clients or uphold the attorney's oath, they should be able to become lawyers.

If someone is legally in the U.S. (and entitled to work, i.e. not as a tourist!) and is qualified to practice law (whether they went to a U.S. law school or not, they have sufficient education and pass the bar) then that's good enough for me. If you don't want competition, lobby for lower immigration numbers. Otherwise, tough.

If you want to argue that an Oxford or Cambridge law graduate or (less prestigiously!) a graduate of any other decent foreign English or Canadian or similar law school who is able to pass the NY bar, is less qualified than the worst graduate of the worst law school in the U.S. who only passed on his or her 10th attempt or something, I'm not going to agree with you - nor will any normal rational person.

Also, unless it's changed recently, NY still allows for "articles of clerkship" with only one year of formal legal education. Not quite as permissive as California, but close - and I support this, as a democratic (in the small-d sense) principle.

You are thinking about this the wrong way. This crook should really use this as an opportunity to do away the bar altogether. Since there are now virtually no standards whasover for the NY Bar, it's a joke. Why even bothering the Bar and C+F?

Just sell the licenses like Taxi Medallions. The NY Bar is a circus - letting unlicensed foreigners abroad practice no formal American legal schooling, foreigners to earn 1 year LLM degrees to permit them to take the bar. Thus, they make it easier for foreigners than American citizens and New York residents.

The point of the Bar Assn is to maintain the integrity of the profession and give a homecourt advantage for locals.

The NY Bar does nothing to help the locals, who have massive debt and competiton from all corners of the globe for the practice of American Law. The NY Bar should close.

Just make a limited # of law licenses open to highest bidders and regulate it, like the Taxi Commission.

No more stupid exams, cles, its all a joke.

They are allowing unlicensed, non JDs to practice India. The Ny Bar must be run by David Paterson, it is so incompetent.

4.00 PM nice speech, but you don't explain how the NY bar is upholding justice or the integrity of the profession at all.

Every country in the world including most states of the US and the whole US court system restricts work to citizens. This is about national security and knowledge of the local customs and values. Not just smarts.

The British schools you mention - you are forgetting that the UK law society just closed the doors to all foreigners. Even before when they allowed transfer testing, they only allowed foreigners to become solicitors but not to work in their country.

Your statement that this convicted murderer meets the ethical requirements to become a lawyer shows how you have your head up your ass. Another lawyer who is a mouth. Just a mouth attached to a very useless body.

Letting everyone get admitted is itself proof of a lack of standards. In many countries including Taiwan only 5% of the bar takers pass. The rest have to take their degree and do something else.

I think people here with experience with the Nigerians on projects already testified to how lazy and not smart they are. As well as scamming, overbilling, and sopping up every benefit.

Did you ever hear of reciprocity? An American cannot become a lawyer in Nigeria. So fuck them, and fuck you you penis brain.

4:00 p.m. again - at least one idiot seems to be confusing right to work in the U.S. with becoming a lawyer. He/she/it doesn't seem to realize that there's even a U.S. Supreme Court case that non-citizens can become attorneys (look it up yourself, even someone as stupid as you should be able to find it). I don't know about the current U.K. situation, but Canada allows non-citizens (e.g. U.S. citizens who are "permanent residents" a status analogous to having a green card in the U.S.) to become lawyers (unified bar, admitted as "barristers and solicitors" except in Quebec). So the U.S. allows non-citizens to become attorneys, other countries like Canada allow non-citizens to become lawyers, so as between e.g. Canada and the U.S. (which also have a special NAFTA provision regarding lawyers working in the other country), what's the problem? They even have reciprocity re patent agents.

If you want to argue that, based on your expertise (hah!), you doubt that certain specific law schools in other countries provide an adequate legal education, great, go ahead. But then to not be racist, the criticism should be of the law schools, not the nationality of the lawyer. Or NY or other bars for admitting unqualified people, NOT for admitting qualified foreigners.

As for attempted murder, I think there was a California discipline case a number of years ago in which an attorney attempted to murder a client and was only suspended for 5 years. I don't necessarily agree (I'd have to know how annoying the client was!) but it's suggestive of the standard.

10:23 - you are missing the point. Your racist diatribe glosses over the essential fact, that what we object to is Legal Permanent Residents who get a JD and paractice law after passing a bar exam. This is doing it the right way.

However, contrast this with foreign LLMs who have no JDs and no LPR. They are opportunits who ride the minority train to last stop, at the expense of American people of color for whom the laws were passed.

Again, leave your idiotic posts with the rest of your racist prattle - in the garbage.

All my life, said Voltaire, I have had but one prayer: "O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous. And God granted it."

In awarding the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama, the Nobel committee has just made itself look ridiculous.

Consider. Though they had lead roles in ending a Cold War lasting half a century, between a nuclear-armed Soviet Empire and the West, neither Ronald Reagan nor John Paul II ever got a Nobel Prize.

In 1987, Reagan negotiated the greatest arms reduction treaty in modern time, the INF agreement removing all Soviet SS-20s and all U.S. Pershing and cruise missiles from Europe.

Other than hosting the "Beer Summit" between Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, what has Obama done to compare with what these statesmen did to make ours a more peaceful and better world?

What has Obama accomplished to compare with what the other sitting presidents to receive the Nobel Prize accomplished?

Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 for the Portsmouth Treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson won the 1919 Nobel Prize for getting Germany to accept his 14 Points as the basis for an armistice that ended the bloodiest war in all of European history.

And what about Richard Nixon?

In 1972, he made his historic trip to China, ending a quarter century of hostility, negotiated SALT I with Leonid Brezhnev, limiting ICBMs, and ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. True, Nixon persuaded Hanoi to sign the Paris Peace Accords only after 13 days of "Christmas bombing."

Yet that did not deter the Nobel committee from giving the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Hanoi 's Le Duc Tho.

Early in the week his award was announced, Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama, the 1989 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who has spent 50 years as a courageous voice for the rights of his Tibetan people, who have endured half a century of Chinese communist repression and cultural genocide. Which of these—the Dalai Lama or Barack Obama—seems more deserving of a Nobel Prize for Peace?

Since the news broke, the president has been a national object of mockery and mirth. In fairness, this is not his fault. There is no evidence he lobbied for the prize; no evidence he knew it was coming.

"Is this April Fools' Day?" said one startled aide.

In accepting, Barack was properly humble, saying that he did not belong in the company of previous recipients, that he would try to live up to the expectations his Nobel had created.

It is the members of the Nobel committee who have made fools of themselves and further devalued their prize, if that is still possible.

For how many Americans could, without Google, identify Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Muhammad Yunus and Martti Ahtisaari? Who are they? The 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008 winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace. In that company at least, Barack, for his willingness to talk to America's adversaries and enemies, is not outshone.

Indeed, looking down the list of other recipients in this decade—Jimmy Carter in 2002, Muhammad ElBaradei in 2005, Al Gore in 2007 and Obama—the committee should probably rename it the Nobel Prize for Peace ... and Stick-It-to-George Bush Trophy.

By 2002, Carter, who should have been included in the 1978 Nobel that went to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat for the Israeli-Egyptian peace he brokered at Camp David, had become a global pest, bedeviling Bush, as he did Bill Clinton, in violation of the tradition of ex-presidents, all the while accomplishing nothing.

While the International Atomic Energy Agency was right about no atomic weapons or programs in Iraq, ElBaradai himself regretted not having been more courageous in opposing the war. As for Gore, his prize was the committee's way of providing publicity for a campaign against global warming that is a front for the latest scheme to advance world government.

As for Obama, he got the award because he is the quintessential anti-Bush. Yet, the Nobel committee did him no service.

They have brazenly meddled in the internal affairs of the United States. They have reinforced the impression that Obama is someone who is forever being given prizes—Ivy League scholarships, law review editorships, prime-time speaking slots at national conventions—he did not earn. They have put him under moral pressure to mollify a pacifist left. They have brought him to the point, dangerous in politics, where a man becomes the butt of reflexive jokes, as did Bill Clinton in the Monica affair.

These Norwegian groupies, acting out of "adolescent adulation," writes the Financial Times, have exposed themselves as "an annex to the left wing of the U.S. Democratic Party" with a "deeply misguided act" that will "embarrass (Obama's) allies and egg on his detractors."

The committee did something else. They ensured that their Nobel Peace Prize will never be taken as seriously again as once it was.

4.00 PM who says it doesn't make a difference if someone is a foreigner or citizen as long as they are qualiied.

Every country in the world restricts the legal profession to their own citizens.

For you to say it doesn't matter if someone is a citizen or not shows how twisted and ignorant you are. The first goal of a country is to look after its own citizens. Everything in the U.S. discriminates between citizens and foreigners, who properly have no rights.

You say that countries like the UK allow foreigners to be licensed (not true anymore in the UK idiot) but none of them will allow them to work.

Once again, you are the racist. Your Nigerians are taking jobs from American blacks - our citizens. It is not racist to keep out foreign nationals.

Yeah stop complaining! I agree with Dave! Now go kiss Robert Half's butt and sit around hanging on the telephone waiting for a call for a three day $13 per hour job at Bloomberg. Make it snappy! Gimme the side of fries, joe.

Also Dave is right. Not every one can be such a clever and useful contributor like him. Like writing the same joke about bopping interns 100 times. It wasn't funny the first time Dave, you cock sucking shit brain.

Name me one profession where there aren't too many qualified applicants at the moment.

MBA's for example are relly up the creek in this economy. Even the Computer Science types are having trouble landing high paying work, and that never happens. I even know a few EE and CE patent attorneys that can't land anything. That's never happened before, normally they can walk into a six figure job without even trying.

Under normal circumstances, there are too few attorneys who will do doc. review. They get interesting and challenging jobs at firms.

I must protest as to the former negative comments regarding nigerians on this board. As a long time document review professional I have on occassion taken nigerian men as lovers. on one project I was blessed to be shared in a family arrangement by two nigerian barristers, who I loving referred to as dark chocolate and black mambussa. I fpund them gentlemen that enjoyed providing me with insights on tribal romance. They spoke of how in nigeria they were mere litigators/gas station attendants/internet scammers, but that here they only work one job. I must admit I loved them and all I learned about motorboating, blumkins and donkey punches.

You must be brainwashed by your schools, but every country looks after its own citizens first (including wherever you come from). Us Americans view foreigners as just coming here to steal jobs and being unpatriotic, i.e., what has a Nigerian ever done for the U.S.A. or giving to his community, No it's just take, take, take gimme gimme gimme. So ask yourself Nigerians why you aren't exactly popular and people want you to go back to your shithole of a rathole country.

By the way I hear your government and economy is really good! no? Maybe it's because your people suck!

Every country does take care of its own. It is high time the US closed off its borders and punished any company for exporting goods into the US. After Japan's economy collapsed after WWII, that is precisely what they did. They made foreign business all but impossible to do, and put constraints on everything. Their economy recovered and is going strong even now.

There is already so much unlicensed legal work done right now that the bar doesn't make any attempt to regulate. All they do is collect money from bar dues and CLEs, without actually giving back to the members. The legal field is absolutely collapsing.

I just got a voice mail from a former client, asking me how things are going. I'm not even sure how to respond, I know the rule is to always return calls promptly, and especially within 24 hours, but what am I going to tell this guy? That my practice is pretty much non-existent now and I need any work that I can get? What a joke.

Better than pretending how well things are going until they read the many law firms people work for are folding right and left and are the worst business in the world.

Nothing could be a worse business model than a law firm. No capital and huge costs, in the most competitive commodity industry in the world, anything can break the camel's back and there goes your lifetime of 24 hours of work equity.

Your grandpa's corner store was a better business. And more honest and socially useful.

But oh yes, you are a doctorate degree holder. Your family is so wow-wow at this. And can use to pick up dumb girls, but any hottie will want you to show me the money.

The biggest problem lawyers face is their own ego. Also having to admit they made so many wrong moves and wasted so much time and money to join the New York bar that ANYONE ANYONE ANYONE can do even some slob from Africa. Your achievement is not even limited to failed American citizens!

You need to get past this!

Everyone all temps and doc reviewers, admit it we are failures. Staff attorneys, too. You're in the same boat and are mostly former temps.

You know, the outside world (not your Nobu and "The City" friends) will feel sorry for you and try to help you. Real people know what it is like to be down and out. Of course not your yuppie friends, because they have to wear the same mask.

I always tell people I don't have anything to do and hate this job. Other lawyers lend an ear and befriend you. The only people who will laugh are those loads of people you looked down on and said you were better than with your nose in the air.

When I look at my degrees and law school admissions certificate, I cannot believe anyone would hand these on the wall like a dentist office. I view them as a mark of shame. A reminder of my own ego and stupidity.

I would do anything to turn the clock back.

But I can't change everything so change what I can.

This has ruined my life so far but why let it destroy the rest. Including my ex-wife who only married me because of my promise of being an Amlaw 100 partner with big money.

The Nigerians only value a scam and being able to get something out of others. To them that is the biggest schievement in life. Fucking someone else over.

I will do anything to make my life worthwhile.

But 1:01 AM this starts by telling the truth! If you lie to others you are just like a Nigerian, that is the lowest form of sub-humanity and a bloodsucking leech.

The temps I met on many years of doc review machine all said they were happy they became lawyers. "It was the right decision." "Overall there have been ups and downs, but I am an attorney and counselor at the law."

I agree that an MBA is a better degree than a JD. IT is more versatile; you can use it anywhere. Unfortunately, we can't go back! We are all stuck paying Sallie Mae for the next 25 Years.

* * *

If you coughed up the cash and did the "JD/MBA thing," -inside joke on dean of students - then you could drop the JD from your resume(there is no hole.) I know five people from my class who dropped their JDs and are just working with their MBA degrees. I don't know if they are going to add their JDs back or not. Is anyone else doing that here?